The government at the centre has sought the assistance of the private sector in the country to help it come up with technology-based solutions to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. As per an Economic Times report, a taskforce is being formed with Anand Mahindra and Tata Group Chairman N. Chandrasekharan for this purpose. They may take in more people as well in the panel.
There have been many suggestions received from many quarters on ways to tackle the crisis going ahead. These will also be turned over to the taskforce to study and come up with practical and prudent solutions.
From the government side, those on the panel will include Principal Scientific Advisor K VijayRaghavan, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman RS Sharma, Electronics and Information Technology Secretary Ajay Sawhney and Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash.
The government has introduced an app Arogya Setu to help a person learn the chances of his or her vulnerability to contract the virus so that they can take proactive steps to protect themselves including going in for testing. Apart from collecting some personal information like the age profile etc. the app will ask you if you had undertaken any travel recently and if you have any of the symptoms like cough and breathing difficulty. Now, this app has also come for criticism from some quarters that is compromises the person’s privacy. The government wants this taskforce to look into this aspect and try and plug the loopholes and improve it so that it becomes an effective tracking tool.
The government’s current worry is how to keep tracking those individuals in the society who may be suspected to be the carriers of the virus once the lockdown is lifted on April 15.
The committee may want to study some of the steps initiated by other countries for the same tracking purpose and see which of those could be adopted in India keeping in view the limitations here.